Spiritual
Warfare Madness: Launching an Evangelical Prayer Campaign from a

United Church

By Carman Bradley

The
Prayer Launch poster reads: “2005:
A Year of Prayer in Canada, National Launch, Saturday, January 8, 2005, Dominion-Chalmers
United Church, 355 Cooper Street, Ottawa. Plenty of free parking
available!” In the lower right corner the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC)
announces: The 2005 National Year of Prayer has been
inspired by, and is partners with the EFC Initiative ‘Celebration 2005.’ Join us as we pray in anticipation of a
great harvest during the outreach weeks of May 21 to June 12, 2005.[i][my
underline]

Many
Canadian Christians at some stage in the same-sex marriage struggle thought of
petitioning God to deliver the country from homosexism and other wows. This approach is in line with what the
Apostle John said to fellow believers:

Dear friends, if our hearts do not
condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from Him anything we ask,
because we obey His commands and do what pleases Him(1 John
3:21-22).

And some 2450
years ago, a chronicler established one of the keys to positively answered
prayer:

If my people, who are called by My
name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked
ways, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal
their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Given
God’s will on the matter of marriage redefinition, given the anti-Christian
consequences of same-sex marriage legislation upon society (adoption of a
homosexist worldview), given the prayer events of 2005 – National Launch Jan
8 and Global Day of Prayer May 15, and given God’s assurance to respond
to His people (verses above), don’t you find it strange that a minority
Government, mired in corruption and scandal, should gain by one confidence vote
(MP Belinda Stronach), two days after the GDOP, the longevity needed to pass
same-sex marriage legislation? No doubt
our sovereign God Almighty has many messages for us relating to this devastating
outcome; however, the burden expressed in this article is that the status quo witness of evangelicals
(inside the UCC and in Christendom as a whole) has just not been worthy. This is certainly not a universal criticism,
but definitely a general observation.
At the start of 2005, Brian Warren, executive director of Canada in Prayer and keynote speaker at
Dominion-Chalmers United Church on January 8, 2005, gave the following prayer
guidance leading up to the Prayer Launch, which is a fitting critique of
the “status quo” witness in Canada:

Jan. 3 – REPENT AND PRAY AGAINST
REBELLION

NATIONAL: Intercede
that rebellious hearts will be turned toward the Living God. Pray that the nation will be brought to its
knees before the Almighty. Ask God to
break the spirit of rebellion even within the Church, and help believers across
the country to surrender whole-heartedly to their Master and Savior.[ii]

Jan. 4 – REPENT FOR AND PRAY AGAINST
HARD-HEARTEDNESS & DISOBEDIENCE

NATIONAL: Agree that the Word of God will once again
be obeyed in this nation. Ask the
Father to soften hard hearts that are far from Him and help them feel again and
turn back to Him (Matthew 24:10, 12).
Pray for Christians who have succumbed to the ways of the world, that
our Wise God will give them a revelation of the state of their hearts, and help
them obey and love Him.

Jan. 8&9 – REPENT FOR AND PRAY
AGAINST PRIDE & DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS

NATIONAL:
...Intercede for the ‘Pharisees’ of today, who preach and speak the Word, but
don’t live it (Isaiah 29:13). Pray that
the People of God in Canada will begin to apply the Word and that it will get
from their minds into their hearts.
Pray that they will humble themselves and live to please Almighty God,
who is the only One worthy to be exalted, and who has a greater plan for this
nation!

Jan. 10 – REPENT FOR AND PRAY AGAINST
UNHOLINESS AND PERVERSION

NATIONAL: Pray for revival to sweep across this land
and for great conviction of sin and holy cleansing to take place. Cry out to God to bring an end to sexual
immorality and adultery. Pray that
Christians will no longer distort the Word of God in order to fit their own
agenda, and that purity will come forth first inside the Church.

Each
believer is an individual sinner, daily in need of repentance and grace, but
what of the actions and decisions of national and denomination-level Christian
bodies? Brian Warren cries out for a
spirit of repentance – repent, repent, repent, repent. Who should respond to this national-level
call for forgiveness and restoration?
Is he directing this prayer to only the individual lay Christian? What about the conduct of the clergy, church
leadership, the formed churches and national denominations? Unless his call to repentance be only
rhetoric and ritual, Warren has identified serious “rebellion within the Church.”
And what denomination needs most to “surrender whole-heartedly to their Master and Saviour”? What denomination has “turned its back on the Word of God”? What denomination needs to “feel again and turn back to Him”? What denomination is double-minded? What denomination most needs “to humble itself and live to please Almighty
God”? What denomination advocates “sexual immorality and adultery”? What denomination “distorts the Word of God in order to fit their
own agenda”? Yet we launch our 2005
prayer campaign from a United Church that is not a member of NACC orthodox
reform movement, that will not declare itself fundamentally opposed to UCC
doctrines, and that invites a staunch liberal pro-homosexual minister to speak
at its UCC Eightieth Anniversary celebration! No wonder our prayers are not answered. God will not be mocked.

The
National House of Prayer website
tactfully refers to the: “2005 January 8,
National Prayer Launch in Ottawa at Dominion Chalmers Church.” Under the
title ‘Why Ottawa?’ the website
reads:

Every decision that`s made
in Ottawa affects each municipality in Canada.
A gate is a point of access;
Ottawa is the spiritual ‘gateway’
into the rest of our nation... What
comes through a gate has influence over what the gate was designed to
guard. In biblical times the
gateway is a place where elders of the city met to make decisions and to settle
disputes. By establishing a House of Prayer in Ottawa, we will be able to
pray as Graham Kendrick says, ‘On site
with insight.’ We desire a Visible Presence in our nation's
capital thus demonstrating a positive example by a Caring and Praying Church of Canada.[iii]

Such
high talk of the wisdom of spiritual warfare, yet blind to the consequence of
association with the United Church. The
website of Pray GTA (Greater Toronto
Area) records:

The church in the Capital region
carries a torch for the nation and deserves our prayerful support. In addition
to local issues, the church obviously carries a special intercessory burden for
the government of Canada…The Saturday evening service at the Dominion-Chalmers
United Church was the official launch of 2005 – A Year of Prayer for Canada.
Brian Warren, of Canada in Prayer, led the congregation in a time of deep
commitment to unite and pray for Canada. At one point, the congregation was on
its face before God, crying out for God’s mercy on our nation… As I reflect
back on the event I am struck by how fitting it was that we launched a year of
prayer for Canada with our arms reaching around the world. It is so consistent
with Canada’s prophetic destiny to bring healing to the nations.”[iv]

Speaking from the
point-of-view of Canadian Christendom as a whole, the year 2005 turned out to
be an unmitigated disaster. The same-sex
marriage decision is a tremendous blow to orthodoxy and Christian influence in
Canada. It is especially hard to
witness believers crying out for God’s mercy and setting see such high
hopes for fulfillment of Canada’s
prophetic destiny from the pews of
a United Church.

Guest speaker Brian Warren
reflects on the events of January 8, 2005:

Canada in Prayer, in partnership with the Evangelical
Fellowship of Canada, the Ottawa churches, the National House of Prayer, and
each of you who joined with us in spirit, successfully launched “A Year of
Prayer for Canada” in Ottawa on January 8, and struck a blow to
darkness! Many thanks to those who
participated in the prayer meetings prior to the launch, hosted by the Life
Centre. On the “First Friday,” Pastor
Joyce Boucher spoke to those gathered about pressing into God and showed a clip
of the Transformation Video….Later that evening ceremonial candles were lit
from the eternal flame on Parliament Hill and carried to Dominion-Chalmers Church,
where the official inauguration of the Year of Prayer took place. Three torches were lit in the hearts and
minds of those present and those who will pray throughout this year - one torch
representing intercession, one for prayer-driven evangelism, and the final one
representing the praying Church. To God
be the glory! In closing, I encourage
us all to use this ‘love month’ of February to meditate on 1 John 4:7-11. ‘Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought
to love one another.’ (verse 11). Call someone on February 14 and
let them know God loves them and so do you![v]

Marg
Buchanan writes in ChristianWeek:

‘Prayer is the way we engage the power
of God for the things He has called us to do,’ says Dave Carson, pastor and
director of Intercessors for Canada, and director of the prayer initiatives for
Celebration 2005…Carson’s role is to ensure that the entire process is
supported with prayer. Monthly prayer
letters to church leaders began to go out last June, just before the event was
launched on “100 Huntley Street.” The
EFC is calling 2005 a year of prayer for Canada, and Carson says it was fitting
to launch the year with a major prayer event in the nation’s capital. A prayer walk was held January 8 in Ottawa,
and included a gathering on Parliament Hill followed by a concert of prayer at
Dominion Chalmers United Church involving prayer coordinators from across
Canada. ‘Canada’s 12 most wanted
answers to prayer’ were unveiled at the gathering, and included prayer for governing
leaders (Parliament and Supreme Court), for the problem of organized crime, and
for our collective guilt for lives lost through abortion[vi].

It
is not clear whether “a no decision to marriage redefinition” or “put a stop to
chronic liberalism within Christendom” were two of the twelve most wanted
answers. The points to all this is that
Christians should not fellowship with and cannot effectively pray alongside
those who hold an unchristian worldview and who are seeking mutually opposing
answers to prayer. In response to a
letter sent to the EFC regarding prayer at Dominion-Chalmers United Church and
the EFC policy on United Church affiliates, the president, Bruce Clemenger,
wrote:

You have raised two main issues in
correspondence with me; the first concerns the decision to hold a prayer event
at Dominion-Chalmers church in January 2005 and the second regarding EFC
and its affiliates who are congregations or members of the United Church. First, the decision to hold the January 2005
prayer event was made by local organizers and agreed to by the prayer
mobilization committee. The event was
not held in partnership with the United Church of Canada. I am unaware that any of the prayer
movements or persons who participated, prior, during or following the event
believed that the decision to hold the event at that location was in error.
Second, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada is an association of evangelicals
drawn together by common adherence to a statement of faith. There are United Churches who have
affiliated and were welcomed into the Fellowship. The decision for individuals and congregations to remain within
the United Church is, I believe, a matter of conscience reflecting their
understanding of what God would have them do.
As a Fellowship, it would be inappropriate for the EFC to render a
determination on a matter of conscience that is not contrary to our statement
of faith. Unless there was a matter of
interpretation or practice flowing from the statement of faith in which there
was agreement among our affiliates, it would be outside the mandate and
authority placed in the EFC to intervene in what is otherwise a matter of
conscience. May God give us each wisdom
and grace.

Praise
God for the EFC and yes “May God give us
each wisdom and grace.” John 15:7
reads: “If you remain in Me and My words
remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.” The National
Launch participants (Canada in Prayer, National House of Prayer, Celebration 2005 and EFC) may feel the event went well and the location was not in error,
but where is the repentance? Where are
the answers to our requests? It is time
we stopped thinking of prayer “events” and stopped measuring success by the level of
inclusivity, the quantity of participants, or even the emotional experience of
the evening. All things considered
there was little cause to Celebrate in 2005, prayer notwithstanding. Has 2006, 2007 or 2008 brought us any closer to the desired day of Christian repentance?

The
matter of the error in holding the National
Prayer Launch at Dominion-Chalmers United Church can easily be clarified by
Dominion-Chalmers publicly affirming something close to the StandForGod.Org worldview (if not by joining
the NACC or by separating from the UCC), otherwise onecredible reason why God has not answered our prayers is because
our leadership has chosen to fellowship with a typical congregation of an undifferentiated
United Church, a branch of the wrong
vine. In effect, we came before God in 2005, at
“the spiritual ‘gateway’ into the rest of
our nation” asking God to heal our land and open the eyes of many to their blindness (“Paul Martin and gays” included) when we were too blind to distance
ourselves from the “United Church.” Why
should we expect God to convince non-believers of the folly of same-sex
marriage, when Christians act in fellowship with homosexist denominations with apparent indifference to the
issue? God will not be mocked or the
Holy Spirit compromised. The Apostle
John gives us this warning:

God is
light; in Him there is no darkness at all.
If we claim to have fellowship with Him, yet walk in the darkness, we
lie and do not live by the truth (1 John 1:5-6).

In
regard to the EFC policy of allowing United Church congregations to affiliate
on the basis of “common adherence to a
statement of faith,” once more, the United Church of Canada lists the
Wesleyan Twenty-five Articles of Faith as an indorsed creed. In an era of abject liberal pro-homosexual
theologies, the EFC must filter its membership through a comprehensive Christian worldview or risk God’s silence. And
should Dominion-Chalmers, an NACC congregation or any other United Church
profess to the authentic worldview, then one must ask, “How
can you remain in the UCC?”

We end where the article began, with the Prayer
Launch poster. When I pointed out to my
wife, in Decemeber 2004, the paradox of an evangelical prayer launch from
Dominion-Chalmers United Church, her immediate response was the church is close
to Parliament Hill and has lots of parking.
Turns out she was right. And the
parking is free!